1978 ‘Les Rendez-vous d'Anna’ Directed by Chantal Akerman
Anna is a film director whose job takes her all over western Europe. In each place she either already has some intimate connection, or readily makes one. People seem drawn to her, but inevitably insist on sharing their inmost secrets and discontents with her, despite her obvious and profound lack of interest in these revelations. This does not deter Anna from continuing to meet people, and she genuinely connects with them occasionally, as when she sees her mother briefly in Brussels.
De Afspraken van Anna
It's been about an hour since the final voice message played and this film closed and I sit here absolutely floored by the power of Chantal Akerman's cinema. Her work specifically in the 70s has become something of great importance to me personally. Her films in this period are formally rigorous, pushing the form into areas that I'm not sure had been approached yet and it's a shame that nobody remembers her for anything other than Jeanne Dielman.
Les Rendez-vous d’Anna is a deeply personal kind of autobiographical tale. Anna moves through cities showing her films having short encounters with strangers, friends and family and each scene is filled with a kind of unknowing sadness that seeps through. Anna is…
In New Orleans, everything is demarcated temporally as "before the storm" or "after the storm." The entire world is shaped and colored by Hurricane Katrina and the federal floods, and it comes up in unexpected ways, from casual references used to indicate when something happened to significant, simple explanations for why something is the way it is now. It's always there. In The Meetings of Anna, the watershed moment that seems to haunt all of the characters is apparently WWII.
It's there haunting everyone Anna meets, directly or indirectly, from lost loved ones to the economic results of the war. It has, over the 30 years between the end of it and the time of this film, altered countless lives,…
Chantal Akerman almost exclusively works on horizontal planes of space. Her compositions are known for their flat, minimalist staging, and she usually cuts with perpendicular angles to emphasize each shot's flatness. So one of the many surprising shots in Les Rendez-Vous d'Anna comes early. Anna leaves her hotel in Germany, and the camera tracks alongside her in a horizontal dolly. Suddenly, a flash of vertical motion interrupts the frame. It's a female maid, almost nonchalantly in the background, waving a sheet as she makes the bed. Another few moments later, another maid appears in the depth of the frame, also working. Akerman then cuts to a perpendicular frame, as Anna continues to walk down the hallway, and three more maids…
i feel so seen and unseen.
with such long, stationary takes, akerman (as she did so masterfully in jeanne dielman) invites you to step into the frame. there are so many quiet moments but never a dull one. it’ll be hard to shake that forlorn feeling by the end.
"I miss you. I have no one to talk to."
"But you never talked to me."
Feelings of loneliness and isolation radiate through every frame, yet there's just enough tenderness to keep me going. People are drawn to Anna, and they want to tell her everything, but to know someone's secrets is not the same as being close to them. To watch Anna through Akerman's static camera as she tries to find a real love in these lonely cities is richly engaging. It's a slow movie -- I would be lying if I said parts of it didn't bore me. However, in the case of films like this, where the narrative takes a back seat to character and atmosphere, I…
When a life is either absorbed by earthly occupations and business (carried with passion or without it) or it is (un)willingly handled without balance, our acquaintances and experiences become little fragments. It is our decision, although not entirely under our control, to transform these little fragments into a big puzzle called life. This puzzle, as big or small as it may be, can be dark, light, round, squared or even shapeless. However, if one of these hundreds or thousands of pieces are forgotten, an inner void slowly starts to grow. The bigger the amount of missing pieces, the bigger the void. The more we let time fly without them, it is harder to put them back on coherently. Alienation is a complex theme.
99/100
Anna is tired of the bullshit
Anna does not care about your failed marriage
Anna doesn’t want to hear about your wounded heart
Anna doesn’t like flowers
Anna doesn’t like the suburbs
Anna will listen to your plight
your dreams
your wishes
closely and intently
Anna is lost, too
Anna is drifting
Dis-so-ci-a-tion
Their fault
The uncoupling of cars
Disconnected
Oui
The train will stop again soon
Oui, oui
Sing me a song
Curtains of lace
Into the night
Did-so-ci-a-tion
Anna is tired
Anna doesn’t care
Paris in the dark
It all comes rushing
Anna, where are you?
this was very relatable in that I also have the tendency to evoke people to tell me their whole life stories without me asking for it
Precisely crafted and confidently constructed, Les rendez-vous d'Anna arranges a series of key moments over a weekend with the main character. Deliberately avoiding a traditional dramatic structure and cutting out less significant scenes, it follows the emotional journey of the main character in unfamiliar spaces as she connects or doesn't connect with people. There is so much that is going on in the film within the precisely composed frames and long takes and it's always remarkable to immerse myself in the emotional and solitary worlds that Akerman creates.
Chantal Ackerman's and her long shots , that was the very first thing I have noticed in this film and I knew from that moment that I must rest and relax and enjoy the upcoming two hours of Chantel’s Europian camera art as she tells perfectly an intimate story or stories , Anna for me she was blank really she was a moving rotless director that moves from one place to another, meeting new or past people during the way and listens to there loneliness, hopes , dispare, and empty souls , and helping them as much in her own way , those monologues were well written and the way they spoke it or act it was genius, as they…
I usually run away from describing boring art films because art - I think - should be "fun," but this film is "boring" to a great extent, surface boring - like surface pleasure - fleeting. So there is no contradiction between artistic pleasure and film. Intended pleasure is a fun and a must find when you have enough patience to find it, and when I find it will never be looking for.
هل تعرف ي هنريك
كنت اعتقد اذا امسك احدهم بيدي فهذا يعني انه
يحبني،لهذا كنت اعطيهم يدي و كل ما تبقى مني
Chantal Akerman is pure art.
This film has such a deep and rich character study of someone who rarely speaks; in this case, action (or inaction), speaks louder than words.
Isolation, loneliness, the fleeting desire of wanting to connect, but also withdrawing when people get too close to you. This duality is so perfectly portrayed in the main performance and through Anna’s actions and sparse moments of dialogue and throughout every frame of the film. The landscape of each city Anna visits is full of empty space, just like the empty space she feels within herself.
The poetry of dissociation.
10/10.
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